How Does Alcohol Mixed With Energy Drinks Affect a Person's Brain?
There have been studies before about the risks of mixing alcohol with energy-boosting drinks. Those experiments suggested that drinkers are better off consuming alcohol straight up than mixing these with energy drinks as they become more prone to car accidents and committing risky behavior.
But experts at the University of British Columbia's INSEAD Business School spotted a flaw in those studies, particularly on the fact that the subjects were not informed they were drinking alcohol mixed with energy drinks like Red Bull, Monster or Rockstar during the experiment.
Teaming up with University of Michigan, the experts made their own study on 154 young, straight men from Paris under the pretense of studying "bar behaviors." The participants were made to consume a cocktail drink but were not informed of its actual content consisting of Smirnoff vodka, Red Bull Silver Edition and a blend of fruit juice.
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They were then distributed to three groups. The first group was informed of the truth that they drank "vodka Red Bull cocktail." The second and third groups, however, were made to believe they drank "vodka cocktail" and "exotic fruits cocktail," respectively. The trials were made half an hour later when the drink began to take effect.
The research tried to determine a link with mixing alcohol and energy drinks to risky behaviors, seduction and gambling. A 2013 survey by Australia's Deakin University found that 73 percent of American students and 85 percent in Italy consumed alcohol mixed with energy drinks.
It should be noted that all the subjects in the experiment had the same actual intoxication levels as they drank the same cocktail. But the "vodka Red Bull cocktail" group felt 51 percent more drunk than the two other groups. The men in that group also felt more sexually confident and were more inclined to gamble.
But one surprising behavior exhibited by the "vodka Red Bull cocktail" was that they waited longer before their drunkenness subsided while being aware that they drank a potentially highly intoxicating drink. The experiment succeeded in establishing that risky behavior is a psychological effect of drinking, not a physiological one.
